The Tuesday before, I met with the director of Stagebrush Theatre's Evita, Jack Pauly. Over lunch, he offered me the position of Director of their upcoming production of The Philadelphia Story, which I eagerly accepted. He also encouraged me to come and review Evita, which had not been on my schedule for unfathomable reasons. So earlier this Sunday afternoon, I sat through a performance that I immediately recognized would result in a horrendous review. Was this a problem for me? No. I live on the blood I draw while biting the hand that feeds me, and I think by now everyone in this community knows that. Dictated by my nearly psychopathic schizophrenia, dividing myself between critic and colleague, I wouldn’t—no, couldn’t—have it any other way, and I suspect the community wouldn’t either.

Like TLT’s recently completed production of A Chorus Line, I had my trepidations about watching a community theatre mount Rice and Weber’sEvita. It is one of those “wall of music” musicals like Les Mis and Phantom that by its very construction requires seamless presentation, triple threat leads, and precise staging. Stagebrush, in its halting attempts to re-establish itself as one of the premiere companies in town, did have a few things going for it. They had mounted a wonderful production of Titanic directed by Pauly two seasons ago, and their offering of The Crucible last season offered hope. Okay, so there had been Carousel in the middle of all that, but hope is the thing with feathers, right?

I was elated at the opening. Well, the opening number after the bungled start of the show. Pauly’s directing choices throughout challenge the original concept and a good 75 percent of the time are inspired choices. But then came Alex Gonzalez, last season’s Billy Bigelow, in the role of Ché (nee Guevera), now a random middle aged man in the crowd rather than the Argentinean-born revolutionary. Okay, hard role to fill, I was willing to go with it. Almost immediately, he dropped a few lines, and then he transposed a few others. Then he skipped an entire stanza, and the look on his face betrayed it all: Three performances into the production, and he still hadn’t learned his lyrics. This went on throughout the remainder of the performance, and it left him unable to connect with those around him. In fact, he actually came onstage for his first song in the second act, “High Flying, Adored,” and sang from a book!

Thankfully, there was Laura Anne Kenney as Eva. A strong singer and dancer, it was obvious that she was attempting to carry this show on her own back. She might have done it, too, “she sure had the chance, but suddenly she seemed to lose interest; she looked tired.” Whether it was from the strain of having to work with a blank look for her Ché, or dealing with an ensemble with no dancing skills, no sense of rhythm, always one step behind, or trying to connect with a Peron (Pauly, doing the inadvisable actor/director thing again) who might have spent rehearsals worrying about everything else, she lacked the “star quality” that makes Evita such a plum role. Then there was Pauly. His best work on the show is obviously his direction and staging, and while he tried to capture the smugness of Peron in song and speech, I must say I’ve never before seen a right-wing dictator with two left feet. He seemed ill-at-ease when dancing with Kenney.

Some bright spots beyond Kenney and Pauly’s direction did pop. Jeff Walker’s Migaldi is a bit of perfect casting, and though she looked to be out of the age range of the role, Kenlynn Shields’ turn as Peron’s mistress in “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” was incredibly touching. That scene also highlighted other interesting choices by Pauly that deepened the song and plot at that point. The featured dancers (Suzanne Embry, Juan “Paul” Garcia, Chelsea Knutson, and Austin Lagomarsino) were as successful as the dramatically out-of-step ensemble was not.

Finally, though, there was the kiss of death for the “wall of music” musical, the long scene changes. The flow of the show was disrupted with all of the scene changes necessitated by Scott McEsler’s ineffective and occasionally behemoth set and Paul Snatic’s gorgeous costumes. This is one time where less might have been more. James Sage’s workable recorded music was balanced by a sound run crew who seemed to have taken Sunday off.